Post date: Nov 24, 2013 12:58:44 PM
Greetings! We are about to embark on our 131st year as an organization. The past year has been one of celebration and reflection, but it has also been a time of great success and growth for us as Cecilians. More than 80 students participated in the Cecilian Award Competition this year, performing in the Gold and Silver Recitals. The Spring Showcase Recital offered an especially lovely program of 18 pianists, and the Cecilian Scholarship grew to fund the enrichment activities of 5 very dedicated young musicians. I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who contributed their time to helping with these programs and dedicated their energy to teaching our student performers. The warmth of the Cecilian community also resonated at our Last Meeting of the Year, with a wonderful Musicale that rekindled our old traditions with performances by George Borisov, Helen Bungert, Jon Chappell, Phemie Chien, Bernice Cooperman, Lisa Frost-Goodall, Barbara Lerro, Marina Strakovsky, Terry Whelan, and Alan Wasserman. This past year also saw a new kind of project at the Cecilian Club, one which I felt privileged to participate in: the Jubilee Committee and myself are proud to announce that we are in the process of publishing an anniversary-edition collection of rare masterpieces of American and Russian Classical Piano works for intermediate-to-advanced level students. The volume will include an essay dedicated to the history of the Cecilian Club, which we hope you will explore and enjoy! To celebrate the start of our new year, we invite you to join us at the revival of yet another Cecilian tradition of the 70s and 80s: the Membership Tea, which will be held on October 27th. Thank you so much to the many, many people who contributed their time and energy to this project, and to the many endeavors of the club over the last few years! Wishing you a fruitful year ahead, and hoping to see you soon,
Marina Strakovsky